Anthony Carver
}} Anthony Carver is the father of Antimony Carver and husband of Surma Carver. He worked as a surgeon for many years at Good Hope Hospital. History Until recently, Anthony had not yet appeared in the comic. He was first shown to the readers as that accompanied Antimony's description of her parents and past. He was revealed to be a surgeon working at the hospital where he, his wife and child lived. Sometime after the death of his wife and the enrollment of his daughter at Gunnerkrigg Court, he left his job and disappeared without leaving any means for his daughter to contact him. During Antimony's first formal conversation with the Donlans and Eglamore, several key facts about him are revealed. The Donlans first give Antimony an old photo, in which he is shown as a young boy in court uniform along with five other students, revealed to be James, Donald, Surma, Anja and a mysterious third girl. The adults then tell Annie that , that he would vanish without telling anyone, sometimes for months at a time. Donald tells her that Anthony but consoles her with the knowledge that her father has made sure that everything was provided for her. At the end of Antimony's first year, she then states in her narration in that it would be over two years before she heard from her father again. He is then briefly shown in the beginning of a flashback, in which he quickly leaves to "attend to other business." During Antimony and Renard's , it is mentioned that he dedicated his life to curing Surma's illness despite knowing its . Later, in Antimony's memory in chapter 31 , he is shown being comforted by Surma in her hospital room where they had both been crying. He turns and notices that a young Antimony had suddenly walked into the room. He then gets up and exits without a word. At the end of Chapter 36: Red Gets a Name, two years later, Jones receives a call from Anthony and passes the phone to Antimony where he only says her name. Their short conversation later proved to only contain a coded message to Donald; to send some items to one of satellites the two of them built when they were younger. To reassure Annie, Donald tells her a story. He reveals that a girl named Brinnie had had a crush on him when they were teenagers. Anthony did not know how to react to Brinnie's flirting and it had sent him into emotional turmoil for weeks. Brinnie refused to ask him out herself, so Donald and his friends tried to invite him to a group outing as a way to get the two of them together. However, when the five teenagers asked him if he wanted to go, he only stared at them with a stoic expression before telling them that he had work to do. Donald's point was that Anthony tends to agonize over the smallest things to the point of avoiding them completely. Despite this, Donald believes the reason he contacted Antimony instead of Donald, suggests that he wanted to hear Annie's voice. Annie then recalls a fond memory. The readers are shown Annie as a child with her father in what seems to be the the aftermath of some sort of Karate lesson. Anthony is shown faced away from his daughter, wrapping her feet. Annie and Donald then send the items, including surgical materials, to the satellite. In the subsequent chapter , Antimony is revealed to have fainted. After a walk through her dreams/in the ether, Zimmy finds what appear to be bones, going from Antimony's fiery self to her father, Anthony. Then, she follows the bones to him and stops him by punching him in the face. At the beginning of chapter 51 , at the start of Year 10, Anthony Carver finally showed up somewhat unexpectedly as the biology teacher for that year. He appears to have scars on half of his face. His first interaction with Antimony, who was just as surprised as the other students, is to chastise her for wearing "ridiculous" makeup in his class and order her to go wash it off. When she returns, he doesn't give her a book and does not explain why he has not. After class, he asks her to stay behind a moment. Annie notices her father's prosthetic hand and asks him about it, but he coldly cuts her off. Anthony then reveals that he is disappointed to learn that she had been cheating in some of her classes. He tells her, unlike the court, he will not let this behavior continue. He tells her that she is to repeat the previous school year, sever any ties she has to the forest and transfer control of Renard to him. In the next chapter , Anthony briefly visits his daughter in the room he sent her to and asks her about her progress on her homework. When she tells him that she has finished it, he glances at Katerina (Who had just arrived there) but Annie reassures him that she did it all on her own. He reveals that Renard had not been cooperating with his instructions, and seems incredulous when Annie tells him that she gave him full control. Kat begrudgingly tells Anthony that her parents have invited him and Annie to have dinner with them. Upon accepting the invitation, Anthony urges Antimony to be ready before then and leaves the room. Upon arrival to the Donlan residence, Donald and Anthony unceremoniously greet each other, their daughters wave to each other from behind their backs. The three then enter the house. Inside, Anja and Anthony awkwardly greet each other and she asks if he is glad to see Annie again. Anthony is glad to see Anja and Donald, but he states that he is merely disappointed in his daughter. During dinner, Anthony breaks the silence by complementing Kat's schoolwork and when he tries to keep talking about Kat, Donald intercepts him by asking him where he's been. Anthony says that he was working. Donald continues to question him, but Anthony avoids giving a straight answer and reminds his old friend that they are not permitted to discuss some aspects of their work. Donald quickly changes the subject, asks about Renard. Donald mentions that the he and Annie had become friends during Anthony's absence, and Anja and Kat insist that Renard has changed. However, Anthony is still reluctant to trust Reynardine. Kat loses her temper, Donald insists that Anthony doesn't need to be so guarded but Anthony decides to leave. To Kat's irritation, he uses Antimony as an excuse, saying that it's a school night and Antimony obediently follows her father out of the house. After Antimony and Anthony have reached Antimony's residence. The two wish each other goodnight and Anthony walks to his own home. Sometime later, Donald visits Anthony to talk to him alone. They share some wine and Anthony removes his prosthetic arm, revealing a badly scarred stump. He then shares his experiences from the past three years as well as when he originally left the court. It is revealed that the Court had him out researching something called the Omega Device, and they knew of his whereabouts the entire time. Gunnerkrigg Court had provided him with the means to research the device and Surma's pregnancy. It had been Surma's idea to leave and cut off all contact with their old friends. She had not wanted her child to be born in the court, and she didn't want Anja to see her slowly wasting away. Anthony agreed to leave, he was especially glad to go after some sort of confrontation involving Eglamore. Having to cut off all contact with her friends at the court broke Surma's heart, but she refused to return despite Antony many offers to bring her back. When Surma finally passed on, Anthony was heartbroken. He regarded her death as his greatest failure and never wanted to return to the court, he thought that Antimony wouldn't want to live with "the man that killed her mother". When Donald mentions that Surma knew the risk she faced, Anthony protests that he promised that he would be able to help. Unable to find a medical explanation for what happened, Anthony went out to discover a supernatural explanation. For the next three years he traveled the world in search of Surma's psychopomps. Over time he had thought that he had gone beyond the court's eye, but he eventually discovered that they had never stopped watching him. Anthony met many people and creatures through his travels and saw things that he would have never believed had he not seen them for himself. The previous year, he had thought he had found what he was looking for. He had gone through physical trials, damaging his face in the process, and ended up in somewhere outside of physical reality. The psychopomps told him that he would be able to see Surma again, that the dead continued to exist in a world beyond their own. To reach the ether, he would need to construct some sort of antenna if only he had the right tools. This was the reason behind the phone call from the previous year, though Anthony had not used a phone. Though he had never wanted Antimony to be involved, she was the first person that he thought to contact, though he was unable to reply when he heard her voice. So he made a message for Donald. The medical supplies he had needed were so he could perform surgery on himself, as the antenna required blood and bone from his own hand. The device worked, warping reality and pulling "Surma" from the ether, to Tony's delight. Unfortunately, the "psychopomps" had withheld the truth. They neglected to tell Anthony that Surma's return would mean Antimony's death. Anthony had only realized that he'd been tricked when "something" (Zimmy, unbeknownst to him.) intercepted the vision, announcing that it was a "message from his little girl" and punched him in the face. The creatures abandon him in the wilderness and he is found by the court. Months later, he wakes up in some sort of hospital ward. Representatives from Gunnerkrigg Court are there to ask him to come back and work for them. When Anthony declines, they threaten to expel Antimony because of her involvement with the forest. After she graduated, they were going to cast her out and remove her from the court and "the program" completely. With no other options, Anthony returns to work at the court again on the condition that his daughter repeats the previous year and stays out of the forest. When he finally returns to teach her class the next year, he nearly has a breakdown over how much Antimony looked like Surma. Though he is thankful that the "thing" interfered, he is still horrified that he almost killed his daughter, a thought that drives him to tears. He tells Donald that whatever was left of anyone who could have been Annie's father was gone, he didn't deserve to see her, and he wished that his body had rotted away after those creatures left him alone in the wilderness. Later, when Coyote demands to see Antimony again, he reluctantly lets her return to her work in the forest. Later, when Antimony asks for Renard back, he gives him back to her no questions asked. Personality As a young man, Anthony Carver's reserved and quiet nature made him comes off as rather cold to most people. Around his childhood friend Donald Donlan, however, he was much more open and emotive. Like his daughter, he is socially awkward and sometimes seems to be the kind of person who waits for others to act rather than acting himself. It is also shown that Anthony dug his nails into his palms till his hands were bleeding when distressed, much as Antimony did when she was upset about his unexpected call. Jones has Anthony as having little patience for non-scientific matters and as being "devoid of emotion." However, since she admits that she was trying to anger Antimony with these remarks, their accuracy is uncertain. Eglamore has described him as selfish and Reynardine has called him horrible. But because Anthony was the one who ended up marrying Surma, the woman that both of them were in love with, there may be some sort of bias in play. His appearance in Chapter 22: Ties seems to support Jones and Eglamore's assessments of his personality. Significantly, he is seen wearing a blank facial expression similar to that of his daughter, Antimony. It is later revealed that Anthony, like his daughter, displays a reluctance to talk about or display his emotions, but isn't completely stoic. They also share a tendency to blame themselves for events beyond their control. Relationships Antimony Carver Anthony's relationship towards his daughter shows some signs of mental and emotional abuse. Before his return, they seemed to barely know each other at all as Annie had described him as a quiet man. Upon his return, Anthony is distant and quite cruel towards her. In a conversation with Donald, it is revealed that Anthony is terrified of getting close to his daughter because he doesn't believe that he deserves to after what happened to her mother. Surma Carver By all accounts, Surma and Anthony loved each other very much. Sometime into their relationship, despite knowing the risks, Surma decided that she still wanted to have a child and Anthony promised he would do whatever he could to prevent her death. After Surma became pregnant, the two settled at Good Hope Hospital where Anthony worked tirelessly to find a cure with the resources he was given by Gunnerkrigg Court. The two of them managed to maintain a good relationship during this time. Chrysoprax Consulting: "How was Surma and Anthony's relationship during Surma's stay in the hospital?" Despite his efforts, he was unable to find a scientific explanation for Surma's illness and his wife passed away after 12 years. His wife's death took a heavy toll on him, he saw it as his own personal failure. With Surma gone, he spent three years looking for a way to revive her. When he eventually found a solution, he realized almost too late that the resurrection would come at the cost of his daughter's soul. Donald Donlan Donald and Anthony were roommates and close friends during their days as students in the Court. Years later, the two men are still good friends with Donald being one of the few people Anthony could open up to and trust. Chrysoprax Consulting: "In a previous question you answered, you said that James didn't like Anthony. What do Anya and Donald think of him?" Decades later, when Anthony returns to the Court as a biology teacher, Anthony is only able to talk to Donald about everything he went through. Though Donald is sympathetic his friend, he doesn't approve of how Anthony has treated his daughter since his return. James Eglamore Little is known about what happened between these two between Surma's leaving James and marrying Anthony, but it was a large part of why Tony left with Surma to Good Hope Hospital. Trivia *''Feng Shui'' is a philosophical system developed thousands of years ago in China. It is a complex body of knowledge that reveals how to harmonize the energies of any given space to assure health and good fortune for people inhabiting it.Fengshui on About.com "What is Feng Shui" Tchi, Rodika **In its earliest form, fengshui was utilized to orient the homes of the dead rather than the homes of the living.An Overview of Ancient Fengshui: Fengshui and Qi Appearances . *We see him in a photo on . *He makes a short appearance at the start of Chapter 22: Ties . * He appears with his face partially obscured in a flashback on Chapter 31, Page 24. *He speaks one word on-panel in a phone call to his daughter, the rest of the conversation happened off-panel on . *The next chapter then features a short story about him which starts on . *In a flashback we see the clearest pictures of him as an adult on page *He then makes another silhouette appearance on . *He makes his first official appearance on Chapter 51 as a grown man as the year 10 biology teacher. *Along with Surma, he appears as a teenager as the main character of a flashback in Chapter 64. }} Gallery Six.jpg|Anthony (top-right) pictured with Surma (bottom-left), James (top-left), Anja and Donald (middle) and Brinnie (bottom-right) References Category:Named Characters Category:Males Category:Queslett House Category:Characters Category:Students Category:Humans Category:Teachers